“On April 16, 2015, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals their ongoing work on an ‘Active Stylus,'” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple. “The patent is focused on protecting new aspects of the original patent that Apple was granted a patent for back in January.”
“The styluses that are disclosed in Apple’s latest patent filing can be referred to as active styluses in comparison to conventional passive styluses. These active styluses can significantly improve stylus sensing on a mutual capacitive touch sensor panel,” Purcher reports. “Although the body of the ‘detailed description’ part of the patent doesn’t differ materially from their granted patent, Apple has added new patent claims that they want protection for. For instance, Apple states in claim 8 that ‘The active stylus of claim 1, further comprising one or more sensors including one or more of a pressure sensor, a motion sensor, an orientation sensor, an accelerometer, a touch sensor and a rotation sensor.'”
“For an invention that most think will never happen, it is incredible how Apple keeps working on it,” Purcher reports. “You check out our archives to see just how many patents Apple keeps filing for a next generation stylus or smart pen.”
Read more, and see Apple’s patent application illustrations, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Perhaps for the “iPad Pro” (or all iPads/iPhones) in some capacity (i.e. not required, but useful for specialized applications; think Apple+IBM and MobileFirst for iOS)?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Lynn Weiler” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]